Fool Me Once ending explained: Why did Joe kill Claire, and what happened to Maya's daughter Lily?

Here's the Fool Me Once ending explained, as some are left with burning questions about the gripping thriller series.

Fool Me Once was released on January 1st, and viewers were instantly hooked by the Netflix drama starring Michelle Keegan and Joanna Lumley. While some have been baffled by the Fool Me Once plot hole, and others more interested in the coats in Netflix's Fool Me Once, some fans have been left a little bit confused by the show's ending. Here's a breakdown of the what happened, and the motives behind all of the key murders in this thriller series.

Warning! There are spoilers ahead...

Why did Joe kill Claire?

It was revealed in episode seven that Lambur Pharma, the business owned by Joe's family the Burketts, was falsifying data in drug trials so that unsafe drugs could be released into the market. This hit home for Sami who was becoming unwell and having severe side effects because he was taking medication from this company. 

It was revealed that Maya's sister Claire who had been working for Lambur Pharma, found out about the corruption and the dangerous drugs being prescribed to the public. Claire planned to be a whistleblower and reveal the truth about the company, but Joe found out and killed her before she had a chance to spill the beans. Joe killed her to protect his family's wealth and business, but this was ultimately his undoing.

£5 at Amazon

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben, £5.00 | Amazon

From the international number-one best-selling author Harlan Coben comes another murder mystery thriller.

View Deal

Why did Maya kill Joe?

Maya killed Joe because she discovered that he had killed her sister. In the final episode, she confronted Joe's mother after she discovered that the nanny cam video featuring Joe was a deep fake made by his family to mess with Maya in the hopes that she would make a mistake and be found guilty of killing Joe. Meaning that Joe was always dead, but the family just wanted Maya to get stressed, make a mistake, and show that she was the killer. 

Of course, Judith Burkett's suspicions were right and Maya did in fact kill Joe. Maya explained that she had also found out that he killed Theo Mora, Tommy Dark, and his own brother, Andrew, highlighting to her that he wasn't quite the man she thought he was.

What happened to Maya's daughter Lily?

In the final moments of the show, Joe's brother Neil shot Maya several times in the chest until she died. The whole event was caught on the nanny cam that Maya set up meaning that Neil, Judith and the whole Burkett family would be going down for their crimes. But where did this leave Lily, as she suddenly became an orphan?

The final scene of Fool Me Once, flashed forward 18 years into the future and showed that Lily had given birth to a little girl she named Maya. In a chat with Eddie, Maya's brother-in-law, at the hospital, Sami said, 'It's good Eddie, that you've been there for her. For Lily.' 

To which Eddie replied that it had been a 'privilege'. The interaction showed that Claire's husband and Lily's uncle had raised Lily and taken her in after her mother passed, and Lily had grown up to be 'just like her mum'.